On Wednesday, Dinesh D’Souza and JD Hall had a debate on whether the church replaced Israel. The debate was hosted by Jeff Dornik, the founder of Pickax, a free speech, pro-human platform. Dornik is a dispensationalist; however, he proved to be a worthy debate moderator for two spirited guests.
Dornik asked the question of D’Souza to define the tree and the branches, and D’Souza defined Jews as the tree. Jews are the trunk of the tree even though Abraham was not a Jew. In the same stretch, D’Souza explicitly argues that Abraham did not have faith in Christ and that he had a generic faith that was accounted for as righteous. This is despite the fact that Abraham encountered and worshipped Jesus prior to the doom of Sodom.
One of the biggest surprises is Dinesh D’Souza’s invocation of Augustine’s framework of a city of God and a city of Man. And this is his hermeneutic for differentiating the Old Testament from the New, as it relates to prophecy and the like. “To say… that Isaiah was preaching Jesus can only be true in a symbolic or allegorical sense.” This is because, according to D’Souza, Jesus would not be around for 600 years. Thus, D’Souza ultimately argues that there should have been no expectation of a messianic reading of Isaiah because Hezekiah was fixated on the Assyrian invasion. D’Souza’s argument ultimately is reduced to pedanticity over not knowing Jesus’s name. In contrast, JD Hall emphasized that all of the Old Testament speaks of Christ, a repeated emphasis of Hall in this debate.
Perhaps one of the best questions Hall asked: what was the point of blood and goats? Hall argues that this was a shadow of what was to come, but D’Souza’s hermeneutic has a hard time with multiple interpretations. He insists on a literal interpretation of things regarding the temple, as though literal and spiritual interpretation cannot coexist within the same passage.
Yet Dinesh D’Souza is selective with his literal interpretation of Scripture. Hall asked whether he believes in a literal 6 day creation and a young earth, and D’Souza flat-out denies it, claiming that Genesis is not to be read literally. Historically, dispensationalists have embraced theistic evolution, Old Earth creationism, and gap theory. Gap theory is even promoted in the Scofield Reference Bible. So while D’Souza’s position is not unprecedented, it is ironic as dispensationalists pride themselves on a literal hermeneutic.
In defending his view on Genesis, he asserts that the Bible is written to accommodate human sensibilities, stating that God was not actually tired when He rested on the 7th day. JD Hall posits that D’Souza’s view is accommodated to his sensibilities towards Jews. And JD is probably right.
The last stand of D’Souza seemed to be on the City of Man, whereby the land promises are within this realm. JD Hall countered, arguing that land promises are a pointless consolation without salvation.
Dinesh D’Souza was focused on not being a stereotypical dispensationalist, even disassociating from the term. However, his reliance on unconventional arguments opened him up to exposure on major Christological fronts. I can only assume that dispensationalists would not be satisfied with D’Souza’s performance, given how bizarre his approach was. His depth of the Scriptures was limited to the ones relevant to the online discourse, and he made limited generic appeals to church history. JD Hall won by sticking to the talking point on how all of Scripture points to Christ and how this relates to God’s promises, asking occasional probing questions that allowed D’Souza to expose himself.
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